Painted Polka-Dotted Pumpkin

Last year, we all carved our pumpkins together.  And though Gracen had a blast scooping out pumpkin guck, sorting seeds, and watching the carving action, she didn’t really get to take part in decorating her own pumpkin.

So this year, we decided to switch it up a little.  Brad and I still carved our pumpkins, but in order to let Gracen be fully in charge of decorating her very own garden-grown pumpkin, we set her up a little pumpkin painting station.

IMG 1237IMG 1242IMG 1244With a handful of brushes and little containers of purple, green, orange, black, and glow-in-the-dark acrylic paint, Grae got busy beautifying her pumpkin.

IMG 1252IMG 1257It was  the best of both worlds, because not only did she get to decorate her pumpkin, but she also got to help us do all of the fun messy parts of carving ours.

IMG 1269After having her fill of icky gunk scooping, it was back to pumpkin painting. She covered  the entire thing in a thick layer of paint and then we let it dry overnight.

IMG 1525The next day, we used a little trick I learned years and years ago and cut a hole in the bottom of the pumpkin (no need to mess with trying to get a lit candle in through the top – you simply set your candle down on a surface and place the pumpkin on top).  Together, we scooped the insides out and used our apple corer to polka dot the pumpkin’s surface (which worked brilliantly, btw).  

IMG 1533Gracen loves it.  It glows just like Mama and Papa’s jack-o-lanterns do, and we were able to preserve almost all of her painting masterpiece.

4 thoughts on “Painted Polka-Dotted Pumpkin

    1. It truly does make it soooo much easier! First off, you don’t have to worry about making it look nice, and secondly, you once you’ve cut the hole you can always make it bigger because you don’t have to worry about the lid fitting on top. :)

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